Taylor Swift: Audience and Industries blog tasks

Audience

Background and audience wider reading

Read this Guardian feature on stan accounts and fandom. Answer the following questions:

1) What examples of fandom and celebrities are provided in the article?

 -Lady Gaga’s Little Monsters, Beyoncé’s Bey Hive, Taylor Swift’s Swifties, and Nicki Minaj’s Barbs.

2) Why did Taylor Swift run into trouble with her fanbase? 

-When the presale for Taylor Swift’s tour turned into a battle royale for fans locked out of Ticketmaster’s system, frazzled Swifties voiced their disappointment. Ticketmaster and Swift quickly apologised, with the singer calling the process “excruciating”. Ticketmaster ended up testifying in Congress in a hearing about consolidation in the ticketing industry.

3) Do stan accounts reflect Clay Shirky's ideas regarding the 'end of audience'? How? 

-Yes,they do as a new audience has begun where they are able to share and post online initially being apart of social media having a say in many conversations.

Read this Conversation feature on the economics of Taylor Swift fandom. Answer the following questions: 

1) What do Taylor Swift fans spend their money on? 

-Albums, merchandise and concert tickets.

2) How does Swift build the connection with her fans? Give examples from the article.

-Swift shares a particularly intense connection with her fans.Fans frequently engage in parasocial relationships with their celebrity objects of fandom, where they feel as if they honestly “know” the celebrity.These relationships are often portrayed as problematic in both academic and popular discourse. However, the connections fans feel to their favourite celebrities can be a healthy expansion of their social world.

3) What have Swifties done to try and get Taylor Swift's attention online? 

-The Taylor Nation twitter account engages with fans who have shared screenshots of merchandise receipts, pictures of themselves with multiple copies of albums, or particularly over-the-top displays of emotion and creativity. This sets a baseline of what it takes to get their – and Swift’s – attention.

4) Why is fandom described as a 'hierarchy'? 

-For Swift fans, these hierarchies are heavily tied to practices of consumption, including the purchasing of concert tickets.

5) What does the article suggest is Swift's 'business model'? 

-Swift’s business model is largely built on fan desire to meet her. How do you meet her? You prove you are the biggest fan – and you’ve made the sacrifices (and spent the money) to show it.

Taylor Swift: audience questions and theories

Work through the following questions to apply media debates and theories to the Taylor Swift CSP. You may want to go back to your previous blogpost or your A3 annotated booklet for examples. 

1) Is Taylor Swift's website and social media constructed to appeal to a particular gender or audience?

-Yes,it appeals to mostly women aged 12 to like 50.

2) What opportunities are there for audience interaction in Taylor Swift's online presence and how controlled are these? 

-Her verified social media accounts would be controlled by managers and they would be posting things such as merch or tour dates that fans can purchase.

3) How does Taylor Swift's online presence reflect Clay Shirky’s ‘End of Audience’ theories? 

-Consumers becoming publishers  is clearly proven in terms of her online presence because consumers take in her content and change it up to make it diffident and post it for other consumers to take int he media.

4) What effects might Taylor Swift's online presence have on audiences? Is it designed to influence the audience’s views on social or political issues or is this largely a vehicle to promote Swift's work? 

-Taylor Swift endorses Kamal Harris, supporting her campaign in the election. This makes her fans also want to support her as they believe it is the right thing to do.

5) Applying Hall’s Reception theory, what might be a preferred and oppositional reading of Taylor Swift's online presence? 

-Oppositional reading-She doesnt even truly care about feminism but instead cares about money and that is why she sexulises her body.

-Preferred reading-She is a feminist trying to make a difference through her music.

Industries

How social media companies make money

Read this analysis of how social media companies make money and answer the following questions:

1) How many users do the major social media sites boast?

-2.96 billion monthly active users worldwide.

2) What is the main way social media sites make money? 

-Through advertising.

3) What does ARPU stand for and why is it important for social media companies? 

-It stands for 'Average Revenue Per User'.

4) Why has Meta spent huge money acquiring other brands like Instagram and WhatsApp? 

-Every acquisition Meta has made since, whether it was $1 billion for Instagram or $19 billion for WhatsApp, was conducted with the same goal in mind.

5) What other methods do social media sites have to generate income e.g. Twitter Blue? 

-Elon Musk bought Twitter in 2022, he rebranded the site X. Corp. and changed the site's blue "verified" checkmark system. These checkmarks were once given to prominent or important accounts (such as journalists, politicians, celebrities, and newspapers, and other media accounts) to show that their identities had been verified and could be trusted.

Regulation of social media

Read this BBC News article on a report recommending social media regulation. Answer the following questions:

1) What suggestions does the report make? Pick out three you think are particularly interesting. 

-Forcing social networks to disclose in the news feed why content has been recommended to a user

-Social networks should be required to release details of their algorithms and core functions to trusted researchers, in order for the technology to be vetted.

-Adding "friction" to online sharing, to prevent the rampant spread of disinformation.

2) Who is Christopher Wylie? 

-He is Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie, and former Facebook investor Roger McNamee.

3) What does Wylie say about the debate between media regulation and free speech?

-In most Western democracies, you do have the freedom of speech. These platforms are not neutral environments. Algorithms make decisions about what people see or do not see. What we're talking about is the platform's function of artificially amplifying false and manipulative information on a wide scale.

4) What is ‘disinformation’ and do you agree that there are things that are objectively true or false? 

-Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people- yes i agree that things can be objectively true for example 'Earth is a sphere' is objectively true and no ones perception can change that.

5) Why does Wylie compare Facebook to an oil company? 

-He says that an oil company would say: "We do not profit from pollution" where it is a by-product - and a harmful by-product. 

6) What does it suggest a consequence of regulating the big social networks might be? 

-It pushes more people on to fringe "free speech" social networks.

7) What has Instagram been criticised for?

-The way "perfect" images on Instagram can affect mental health and body image.

8) Can we apply any of these criticisms or suggestions to Taylor Swift? For example, should Taylor Swift have to explicitly make clear when she is being paid to promote a company or cause? 

-If Taylor swift is getting paid promotions then she should disclose this as it would make a difference on what they can be true to its description and what isn't.